


Recognition

by not_poignant



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, Asexual Jack, Hurt/Comfort, Invisibility, Isolation, Loneliness, M/M, Neglect, Romantic Friendship, Touch-Starved, asexual Pitch, but pre-movie canon, but some, dark themes, egregious references to musicals, not as much fluff as i thought, predominantly movie canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-06-02
Packaged: 2018-01-25 23:50:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1666988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_poignant/pseuds/not_poignant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack Frost, spirit of fun, winter and snow. Pitch Black, spirit of nightmares and fear. They couldn't possibly have anything in common, except, perhaps, the same desperation for recognition in a world all too willing to forget they exist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this up today and I know I said I had mostly moved past this fandom but can I put the emphasis on the _mostly?_ OOPS. 
> 
> Notes: Nothing to do with the FtDWR/ISWF verse. Set pre-movie canon, but within the movie canon. 
> 
> Feedback is love. This will probably only be about two parts in length, and has no real over-arching plot and I guess is more of a character study between two very lonely people who have moral compasses that don't exactly intersect. *stares at Pitch and Jack with sad eyes*

_It was,_ he thought, _really uncool._

Jack skated along the winds, looking for all the world like a carefree, reckless young lad. He performed a job that no one noticed. All of his bosses were young, friendly folk who would give him praise – he was sure – if they ever _saw_ him.

_Super uncool._

He’d been alive long enough to find different ways of expressing how he felt about the silvery trap he was in. Some days he went straight to swearing, though he made sure he was never around the kids when he did it.

(Except that one time, when he swore as loudly as he could, combining words in increasingly creative combinations, in the hope that one kid, _one kid in the playground,_ would hear him and notice him.)

This was a Friday afternoon, all the kids were turning out of schools and looking forward to the weekend, and he...

He wasn’t really feeling it.

_The most uncool._

Besides, he’d brought this on himself. He knew he had. He soared higher into the sky, looking up at cumulus and wondering if it was worth it. If those big, fluffy, _wet_ containers of rain would cheer him up. He tipped back on the winds, let himself freefall towards the ground, his staff held out beside him. The cumulus disappeared, he felt gravity as a horrible knot in his stomach. It was like a person standing behind him, an unpleasant gaze.

He pulled away from it at the last moment and headed away from the city.

_You have to stop listening in to parents, like, why do you keep doing it? Why?_

He didn’t know how he managed to do it. He found kids – to have fun with them, honest! And he did have fun. Around them. Near them. By their sides. _Through_ them if he forgot himself or they ran right through him.

 _Shouldn’t be able to feel cold as a bad thing, but that always feels_ so _cold. It’s the worst._

He meant to have fun. But he would sometimes miss the mark. He would find some sad kid off on their own, hang out with them. He made the snow dance around them in flurries. He dusted it on their nose. He painted frost near them in pretty shapes. Sometimes they noticed. Sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes they got annoyed.

Sometimes their parents came to pick them up, and _sometimes_ – because he’d been around the world enough times now – he heard stories. Stories that left him with icicles in his heart. The harsh cracks of frozen lakes in spring.

‘...I don’t want to put him back into the foster system, we’re really fighting hard to make sure it doesn’t happen. His case worker says he doesn’t even know how to be hugged, but you can tell he needs it? He watches me with Davey and you can just... _see_ how much he needs it. And I think we could be good for him! Just because my living circumstances can change, how can they talk about taking him away from us?’

The kid – who didn’t have a name because no one said his name – sat disconsolate nearby, staring at a snow drift.

He was one of the ones who hadn’t noticed Jack, too lost in his own thoughts.

‘It’s gonna be fine, buddy,’ Jack said to him, swinging on a pole nearby, offering a smile. He liked to think – even if it was futile – that if he sent them good, light-hearted energy, they’d somehow _feel_ it. After all, the moon influenced the tides. A great deal more than the tides.

Jack refused to look up at the sky, even though the moon wasn’t visible. He always knew the Man in the Moon was there. But too many one-sided conversations meant that all _he_ felt was the invisible pull of the moon’s neglect.

He didn’t want the kids to feel an invisible pull of neglect. He sent them what he could. He hoped that if he was putting it out there in the world, they could feel it.

The kid looked like he felt the world wanted to open up and eat him alive.

In the end, the parent had taken the kid home, and Jack was left swooping through the skies trying to outrun something that lived inside of him.

He understood those kids a little too well. But he’d never been _hurt_ by anyone. Not really. No one could touch him, it wasn’t like anyone had ever placed harmful hands against his skin. No one could! The only person who could touch him was himself, and well, if he’d spent the occasional evening just stroking the tips of his fingers over the back of his hand and pretending it was someone else, then that _wasn’t_ embarrassing and anyone who said so could go and...

No one would say anything.

The Guardians knew he existed and mostly ignored him. Sometimes he annoyed them, and he got a rise out of them, and then they ignored him again.

As for everyone else...well, he orbited them like the moon orbited the earth. There was no touch. He might as well have been tens of thousands of kilometres from all of them.

*

‘So, here I am, talking to you again. Like an _idiot,’_ Jack said, not even looking up at the moon. He could see it in his peripheral vision as it rose, as the sun set, as shadows crept up the large fir he was resting in. He shifted his bare feet on rough bark and wondered what stubble felt like. Almost, _almost_ he could pretend he knew exactly what it felt like.

‘Are you like...my birth Dad or something? Did you not want me? Is there some kind of foster system where I’m meant to be picked up like...like that kid at the school?’

Jack laughed under his breath.

‘I mean I know how stupid it sounds, but I do like, wonder a lot. I mean how many times have you and I had this conversation, y’know? What’s the point of life, blah, blah, blah. And then we laugh, like old times.’

It wasn’t the first time that Jack had considered that all these years of isolation was maybe making him even less mentally sound than he’d been when he first woke up from a frozen lake. And that was saying something, because he’d kind of been possessed by an intense, hysterical giddiness, and he’d clung to it – almost manic – when he realised that no one could see him.

That was when he’d chased the world, sure that _someone_ could.

‘Y’know, because if you _didn’t_ want me, but you knew like, someone who did, could you just kind of poke them in my direction? Is there some kind of...system for...whatever I am?’

The shadows thickened around him, the moon brightened. Jack settled back into the tree and scratched at his staff absently. Texture. He needed texture. He rubbed his fingers over the fraying hem of his pants. Over the frost on his hoodie. More grew back straight away, and he rubbed at it again. His palms and fingers were itchy. He wanted to stroke hair that wasn’t his own. Did it feel different depending on the person? Of course it did.

He wasn’t sure how he knew that, but he knew it.

The moon kept rising, hour by hour, and Jack slowly dragged his fingers through his hair, over and over again. Almost, _almost,_ he could pretend it was someone else’s hands. If he tilted his wrists, if he used his fingers differently, he could close his eyes and it would be someone else.

Once – and he’d die if anyone knew this – he found a store mannequin lying sad and unclothed in a rubbish dump, and that night he’d come back and taken its plastic hand and moved it over his head and started laughing – high peals of laughter – when he realised both how stupid he looked and how desperate he was. And then he went silent for a long time when he realised that the hand _did_ feel different and it _was_ easier to pretend that it was someone real, someone else, touching him like that.

The moon rose late that night, and when the moon _saw_ him, saw what he was doing, how desperate he was...and didn’t react?

Jack wouldn’t tell anyone that he cried. But he hid his face from the glowing satellite and flew into the trees and never visited that place again.

He didn’t even like looking in shopfronts anymore.

*

The moon was setting when he woke up. Snow was falling around him. Sometimes he wondered if he’d started it without realising, or if it just...started. He didn’t control _all_ of winter. He wondered if there was some spirit that did. Some...thing like him. He wondered if he’d like them. He wasn’t sure. He’d tried looking. He’d not found a great deal. Going to the coldest places on earth introduced him to scientists and polar bears and emperor penguins, depending on which hemisphere he was circling.

Jack looked around into the early morning shadows, the gloom of the forest, and laughed bitterly.

‘No foster parents. Ah, well. Can’t blame a guy for trying.’

‘I tried to take over the world once.’

Jack startled and almost fell off his branch. Quick reflexes and his staff allowed him to stay in place as he looked around in shock, cold heart beating a rabbit thump in his chest.

‘I tried, and I think it’s safe to say that one _can_ blame a guy for trying.’

A droll delivery, then the shadows transformed beneath him into a tall, sleek gentleman, standing on a branch below and looking up, brows raised curiously. He smiled like he was sharing an in-joke, and his eyes gleamed the unmistakeable colour of ‘not human.’

‘I’m not trying to take over the world,’ Jack said, mouth dry. He worked at a swallow. His was a world of good guys and bad guys. Heroes and villains. But Jack wasn’t a hero, and...well...

He missed conversation, no matter how threatening.

‘You’re not?’ the man said. His smile widened. ‘Couldn’t...tempt you?’

‘Ha,’ Jack said, heart fluttering now. ‘Yeah, right. I’m about kids and winter, I’m not your guy.’

_Not anyone’s guy. Not anyone’s anything._

The being’s eyes gleamed, and he hummed in the back of his throat the way some people did when they had a particularly tasty bite of food. He folded clever hands in front of him and leaned against the tree, completely unintimidated by the height. Around the bottom of his robe, shadows danced.

_Definitely not a good guy, huh._

‘So...’ Jack said. ‘Gonna try taking over the world again?’

‘Perhaps,’ the man said, frowning slightly. ‘If I think of something that appeals. If I can reach my goals without total world domination, I won’t be taking over the world. However, I _suspect..._ I may need the latter, in order to get what I want.’

‘What do you want?’ Jack said, and the man shrugged.

‘Recognition.’

‘Yeah,’ Jack laughed. ‘You don’t need to take over the world for that, I’m pretty sure.’

‘Well, indeed, but how on earth would _you_ know?’

The man shook his head like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and then sighed, as though bored. He lifted a lazy hand, waved goodbye, and melted back into the darkness as the first ray of sunlight gleamed over the branch where he’d been standing.

Jack found himself staring at the shadows, wondering if this was the kind of thing he was supposed to let someone know about.

*

Months passed. That was how things normally went. Seasons turned – that was predictable. Kids were mostly the same everywhere and nothing really surprised Jack. He tried to surprise himself, but who was he kidding? He couldn’t mimic that frantic thump in his chest the way he could when he’d seen that...whomever that was.

He never told anyone about it either.

He’d looked in shadows for days afterwards, but nothing had happened, and in the end he was left talking with the moon again, talking to the wind, talking to himself, talking to kids that never heard him.

It was spring, he was helping bolster a snowball fight by adding extra snowballs to the armouries of about ten kids – most of them cousins. They were playing at the back of a small property, and a horse watched nearby.

When Jack looked over, absently, a second time, the man was standing near the horse. His arms were folded on the fence, and the horse had its ears back. Its tail flicked back and forth. The man looked at it, then took several steps away and refolded his arms, and Jack – not looking where he was going – slammed face first into a tree and knocked all the snow off the branches.

The kids yelled in delight, and Jack – dazed – pushed himself upright and looked over, only to see that the man was gone.

Jack realised, belatedly, that he’d been standing in the shadow of a shed.

A creature of shadows then. Probably a major bad guy.

Jack found that he cared less and less about the distinction, as he got older but never aged.

*

Three days later, Jack crouched in the lee of a stone, the shadow drenching him like night. He could still see the sky, but he felt the hushed nature of what it was to be in the dark. He wasn’t afraid of the dark. He waited.

He was surprised when he didn’t have to wait long. The man appeared nearby, coalesced out of darkness. He sat cross-legged, arms folded in his lap.

‘You’re searching me out,’ he said.

‘You did it first,’ Jack said.

The being looked amused.

‘What’s your name?’ Jack said. ‘Why haven’t I heard of you? You can move in and out of shadow. That seems like it’s kind of a big deal.’

‘Boogeyman,’ he said in response, shrugging. ‘Pitch. Every name I have is rather boring, except one, which doesn’t particularly fit as of this moment.’

‘Pitch,’ Jack said, and Pitch’s lip curled.

Silence bent around them, flowed like water. Jack kept thinking of things to say and then dismissed every one of them. Pitch seemed bored, but Jack wondered if that was a front. He’d known kids who could look like they weren’t hearing a thing their parents were yelling at them, even when they were so close spit flecked their faces. Those kids sometimes went away and cried in their rooms. They’d heard everything. So he knew Pitch’s appearance of boredom was probably not true boredom, if he was still hanging around.

But then, Pitch wasn’t a kid, so he couldn’t be sure.

‘You talk to the moon,’ Pitch said finally. ‘You realise it’s a _complete_ waste of your time? If you’re not in the moon-approved-clique, you’ll not get any answers out of ol’ Manny. He doesn’t care about your problems.’

‘Yeah?’ Jack said, forcing a smile. ‘You see anyone else? I mean come on, you’re the _boogeyman._ Scaring kids. Living in the shadows. This you _caring?_ Your timing wasn’t exactly subtle, you know. Me talking about foster parents, suddenly you show up. Am I meant to be your minion or something? How dumb do you think I am?’

‘I think actually you’re quite stupid,’ Pitch said, laughing softly, ‘but I don’t think _I’m_ that stupid. Or perhaps we both are. I’m not about to recruit you. You’re unpredictable. You are a trickster. Everyone knows better than to have a trickster on their team, unless they have a desperate desire to embrace chaos that they cannot control. Did that sound eloquent?’

‘Sounded pretty good, yeah,’ Jack said, bristling at the idea that no one wanted a trickster on their team.

He thought of Bunnymund, of Easter, his shoulders tightened.

Pitch hummed a song in his throat, surprisingly tuneful. The melody trailed off, and Jack realised how nice his voice was. He’d always thought whatever was behind nightmares would have a caustic voice. Rough and brittle. As shocking as the nightmares themselves.

‘Why aren’t you scarier?’ Jack said.

‘Fear has more power after a lull,’ Pitch said, and Jack blinked at him.

‘That’s not- Was that my cue to leave?’

Pitch laughed, seemed genuinely amused. A light reached his eyes and he trailed his fingers along the cold ground. Jack watched the way the backs of his nails brushed over decaying leaves, over-watered grass that didn’t get enough sun, damp soil. He swallowed. Shivered.

‘Believe it or not, Jack, I’m not one hundred percent about nightmares one hundred percent of the time. One’s gotta work to make a living, as the saying goes? But I’m not...only that. You’re not only fun and games and snowballs. Otherwise you wouldn’t be sitting under a rock. With me. Apparently not in any hurry to go anywhere. We’re both perfectly capable of sitting here, neither of us terribly burdened by the urge to go and do what we’re supposed to be doing. What a miracle.’

‘If I had a voice like yours, I’d probably go with constant sarcasm too,’ Jack said, shaking his head and touching his staff idly to the stone behind him, sending frost along it.

Pitch smirked and then chuckled.

‘Damn,’ Jack said, and Pitch raised brows at him. ‘No, it’s just, it’s just occurred to me that you’re probably like some great arch-nemesis who has tried to take over the world before, and I think you’re kind of cool. Does that make me a bad guy?’

‘Yes, Jack. It makes you the absolute _height_ of evil.’

‘Sarcasm, huh?’ Jack said, glaring at him.

‘If you need to tell people that you and I have spent time in each other’s company, then by all means do so. But I should warn you that two things will probably happen. The first is that the people you warn – I can suspect who they are – will go to great pains to put me back in the earth again, and I shall _retaliate_. And the second is that I’ll not be very inclined to put aside my _current_ plans in order to explore what it might be like to spend time with someone who doesn’t scream in terror whenever I appear.’

‘Current plans?’ Jack said, stiffening. ‘Current plans to like...take over the world?’

‘I always have something in the works,’ Pitch said, face turning serious. ‘Always, Jack. Don’t underestimate how important recognition is to me.’

‘What does that even mean? Like, you want everyone to know who you are? All the kids do. They’ll grow into adults who’ll make more kids that keep fearing you. You’re just...what do you want? What do you want that makes you want to have it from _all the world?’_

Jack stood up, unexpectedly disgusted.

‘Y’know, I’ve spent my entire life not having like...a _shred_ of what you’ve got. You’re greedy. And that’s uncool. You’re the kid in the playground that wants everyone else’s money.’

Pitch looked up at him, nonplussed.

‘Are you saying I’m the capitalist?’

The laugh was surprised out of Jack’s throat and it was a hiccupped, fragile thing. He held a hand over his mouth and stared at him.

‘Be more evil,’ Jack said, pointing his staff at him.

‘You have the means to make me,’ Pitch said, and then pursed his lips. ‘That’s rather underhanded of me, isn’t it? The fact is, Jack, if I decide to try and take over the world again, it will likely have very little to do with you. Now, are you going to flounce away? Is it time for Santa to get angry at... _the dark?’_

Pitch waved his hands, and Jack realised he was making jazz hands. He squinted and then found the absurdity of it chased away his good humour.

‘Yeah, I’m sure that’s all that was. You scare children. You scare kids that like...go through scary stuff already.’

Jack thought to the foster child and swallowed.

‘Do you scare like...the really...vulnerable ones?’

‘Yes,’ Pitch said, voice flat.

‘Do you like it?’

‘Sometimes,’ Pitch said, staring at him. ‘Does that bother you? That I can go to a child who has lived a living nightmare, and exacerbate that in their sleep? That I can _enjoy_ it?’

Jack glared at him, but inside he was confused.

It did bother him.

But he still didn’t want to leave.

What did that make him?

‘Am I a bad guy?’ Jack said, and then he smiled strangely. ‘Am I having an identity crisis?’

Pitch said nothing at all, stared at him with that lambent gold gaze. After a few seconds, it ratcheted up the agitation in Jack’s chest, and he flew away without a glance over his shoulder, shuddering as he went, clouds following him in the sky and leaving heavy snowfalls behind him.

*

Jack woke with a start, and then yelped when he saw Pitch sitting beside him on the giant bough.

_Congratulations, Jack, you have a stalker! Yippee!_

‘In answer to your questions,’ Pitch said, as though two weeks hadn’t passed. ‘No, I don’t think you’re a ‘bad guy.’ And yes, you’re probably having an identity crisis. But, perhaps you might wish to consider that you’re getting something you want for the very first time in your life, and you’re discovering you’re willing to put _some_ of your moral compass aside, for that something.’

‘No,’ Jack said, still waking up, rubbing a curled hand over his face.

‘I do it too,’ Pitch said, looking at him with something like pity. ‘It was very tempting to give you nightmares while you slept. You certainly have enough fear I could play upon. I chose not to.’

‘Thanks?’

‘You choose to ignore certain truths about what I am, to tolerate my company.’

Jack stared at him, felt _warmth_ radiating from him. They were only a foot apart. It was the closest he’d been to someone who could touch him since Bunnymund got right up in his face and yelled at him about the importance of _respect._

‘Can’t ignore the truth forever,’ Jack said, staring at him. He felt like he was losing something that he’d never had a chance to have. He damned his mind for doing this to him. Pitch’s hands were right _there._ They were real hands. Not mannequin’s hands. The knuckles were knobbly and the fingers were long and his hands looked like they’d shaped sculptures in other lifetimes. He stared and his breath was the heaviness of gravity in his chest.

‘I don’t need a foster parent,’ Jack said suddenly. ‘You heard what I said, I don’t need that.’

‘I don’t need a foster child,’ Pitch said.

Jack couldn’t tell if the silence after that was both of them aware of the lie, or turning over a truth that felt odd.

‘But you know you need something,’ Pitch said, his voice far softer than it had any right to be.

‘Yeah?’ Jack said, voice brittle.

‘Friends. Companions. Colleagues. _People.’_

‘You’re not people,’ Jack spat. ‘You’re the guy that brings kids nightmares and makes them scream themselves awake and wet the bed and shake so hard they can’t concentrate at school the next day. That’s _you.’_

‘I don’t know why I am the way that I am,’ Pitch said evenly, ‘but I refuse to be made to feel shame for something I cannot actually control. I am _made_ of shadow, it lives within me, breathes through my lungs, speaks to me. I feed off fear. I am what I am. This world decided it needed nightmares, and lo, I appeared. It might be some bastardised bible retelling, but that’s the way that it is, Jack. You don’t have to like it, but darkness exists in the world.’

Pitch laughed.

‘Come find me, once this little crisis of yours is over. You better shape up, Jack.’

There was the faintest hint of a tune in the last sentence and Jack’s eyes widened.

‘Did you just use a _Grease_ line with me?’

‘Honey,’ Pitch said, even as he faded away, ‘musicals are _tremendous.’_

Jack watched him go, stared at the place where Pitch’s hand had rested on the tree bough. He didn’t risk anything while the shadows were still around him. So it wasn’t until eight hours later that he reached over and touched the space that Pitch’s hand had left behind.

It was cold. Jack imagined he felt something of touch in there anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS SO TWEE I DON'T KNOW HOW TO LIVE WITH MYSELF OKAY, OH GOD.
> 
> *
> 
> (Feedback is love, and thanks for reading!!!)

He had _Grease_ stuck in his head. He didn’t even _like_ it. He’d seen it a few times at drive-ins, and it wasn’t really his style of film. Also, a surprising amount of couples in the cars seemed more concerned with doing prolonged, sticky things with each other, and that wasn’t really Jack’s area of interest. He liked the ones that leaned into each other quietly and just watched the film.

It was hard to watch them and not get distracted by the sounds of people making out in both the film itself, and the cars in front of the giant screen with its projected pictures.

Not that Jack was a voyeur! Only that, sometimes, he would see people holding hands in the streets, or the way a friend might bump into another friend’s shoulder, and he would find himself lingering, cataloguing, putting those experiences into his mind.

Somewhere, amongst thoughts of snow and fun and children playing, was a library of all the ways people could touch one another. Of hands framing faces. Of the way someone could adjust someone else’s scarf, tie, shirt or tuck in a label. The way hair could be ruffled, stroked, petted, tugged. How someone could rub someone’s back, draw circles over it, clasp a shoulder. The way hands could be held, fingers interlocked, palms traced, wrists circled gently.

He knew the rougher ways people could touch each other too, but he wasn’t interested in any of those, outside of the rough-and-tumble of children playing.

_You know you need something._

Those words had played in his mind over and over again. Of course he knew! He’d only talked to the moon about it countless times, only stared hungrily at people who touched other people so often that he sometimes forgot what he was supposed to be doing. Pitch wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t know. But the fact that Pitch also _knew_ it was troubling.

He wondered how many of his conversations with the moon had been observed. Wondered how much Pitch really knew.

He wanted to care about how evil Pitch was, a lot more than he did.

But he already cared enough that he didn’t make himself crouch in any shadows looking for Pitch for some time.

*

‘Some time’ started off as days, turned into weeks, became a month and a half. He spent a lot of time thinking about their conversations. They’d not exchanged that much time with each other but the words he’d shared with Pitch meant a great deal more than anything else he’d ever exchanged. They were insightful. He felt...seen.

He hated that. He was being seen by a villain. By a creature of shadows. He didn’t want that! He wanted to be seen by _kids._ He wanted the _moon_ to respond to him. He didn’t want someone who knew millions of children’s screams first-hand, because he’d caused them.

And he didn’t want the strange tendrils of warmth that curled through him when he thought of him. It made him nauseous, sometimes. He felt betrayed by himself.

Mostly, he was confused.

After a month and a half, he was tired of going around in circles. He sat – at sunset – halfway up a mountain. Shadow had well and truly cloaked where he was sitting before the sun had disappeared, and he spent time decorating the stones nearby with frost. His teeth worried at his bottom lip.

Pitch appeared as glowing eyes first, and then the rest of him came together in a murky drift and shift of shadow. He didn’t say anything. He watched Jack carefully, then sat as well. He looked oddly casual with his legs crossed. He looked like someone who could do more than just lurk underneath beds or creep around in the dark. In that moment, Jack could see him lounging on a chair, flicking through television channels with a remote, drinking from a carton of milk at midnight.

Jack couldn’t even really do those things. He doubted Pitch did those things.

But he could see it. And the shock of realising that Pitch might be capable of such mediocrity didn’t help the strange pull in his chest.

‘I can’t do this,’ Jack said, standing and laughing. ‘I know you came out of your way, but-’

‘I didn’t,’ Pitch said, looking up, bland, calm expression on his face. ‘I look for your shadow, I can divine the location from that alone.’

‘Creepy.’

‘Effective.’

‘But _creepy,’_ Jack insisted.

‘You’re a cold boy who can freeze people to death, who _has_ frozen people to death, and you’re calling me-’

‘They deserved it?’ Jack said, staring at him. ‘They really deserved it. And that’s _not_ creepy.’

Pitch smirked, folded his hands in his lap, and Jack wanted to make a sound of frustration because no, _no,_ this was going wrong. He didn’t know how it was supposed to go, but this wasn’t it. He tapped his staff impatiently on the rocks around him, and the sound echoed.

‘I don’t like you very much,’ Jack said, and Pitch chuckled.

‘A swing and a miss for the rookie, I’m afraid.’

‘Cut it out.’

‘You’re agitated,’ Pitch observed. ‘Is it really so hard for you? Am I so repulsive? I’ve been on my best behaviour.’

‘That’s the point,’ Jack said, turning and facing him. ‘What are you normally like, hm? I’m _normally_ playing with kids.’

‘You can’t play with people who don’t know you’re there,’ Pitch said and Jack’s teeth ground together. ‘You play by yourself, and pretend.’

‘No, I help them,’ Jack said. ‘I help them. I can make sleds go further, I make snowballs that make them have a better time.’

‘If a tree falls and no one is there to hear it...’

Jack shook his head, his lips thinned on a bitter smile.

‘What do you want, Jack?’ Pitch said, his voice becoming softer, sleeker. ‘Friends. Companions. Colleagues?’

Jack swallowed.

_I want to see how different your hair feels to mine._

He could just lay his palms on it carefully, and see if it was as springy as it looked. If it was stiff and coarse. If it was like small tiny wires, or if it was soft and held together with product. He could put the information in his library. And later, he could remember it.

He didn’t know how to say what he wanted.

‘You want someone to talk to,’ Pitch said. ‘Such a mundane thing, but so unreachable for...a surprising amount of people, did you know? You’re not the only person in this world who fears a lifetime lived without true connection. True and meaningful connection.’

‘You and those nightmares,’ Jack said, in despair.

‘And,’ Pitch said, splaying his fingers. Jack watched the movement and felt like splaying his own, mirroring the gesture. ‘You want to touch me.’

‘Ah, no?’ Jack said, laughing. The sound was higher than usual. He wanted to hit something.

‘You want to touch me. I see the way you look at me. And you want to be touched.’

Jack shook his head vehemently. He’d heard conversations like this; teenagers, adults talking to each other. He’d seen people in cars talk about touch and then take it to places that were too-

‘I don’t want to have sex.’

Pitch made a scornful noise.

‘Heaven forbid. I don’t even know how that would _work._ You’re a living icicle, and I’m made of _shadow._ Do you really want to be fucked by the dark?’

‘No. I don’t want _any_ of that.’

‘Then you’ll be relieved to know that I don’t, either.’

Jack stopped in time to realise that he’d been pacing. He pointed his staff at Pitch – probably a rude thing to do, he realised, but he didn’t care.

‘Seriously?’

‘Mm, _for real.’_

Silence then, and Jack’s mind was racing, but wouldn’t give him any complete sentences to focus on. There were emotions, but too many to pull one out of the ball. He watched Pitch, and Pitch watched the ground. He was quiet, contained. He was composed of things that Jack wasn’t.

‘I also have an identity crisis,’ Pitch said, looking up. ‘Mine is: ‘I was created, but nobody wants me.’ Yours is: ‘You were created, but nobody sees you.’ But I see you, and I think you want me. Not all of me, certainly. But beggars cannot be choosers, can they Jack? I’m sure you would pick someone else to see you.’

Jack nodded, painful honesty finding him.

‘Yeah.’

Pitch’s face twisted, smoothed again.

‘Exactly.’

Jack sat, his knees folding under him, hard stone digging into his skin. His arms lowered by his sides, his staff hung limp.

‘This is dumb,’ he said.

‘I know,’ Pitch said, sighing. ‘I’m aware. I haven’t spent the past month and a half wondering about ‘that blasted boy’, unaware of how idiotic this all is.’

‘Recognition, huh?’ Jack rubbed his hand over his face. ‘People noticing you. I never wanted much, you know. Even this, like, us talking...it’s more than I ever thought I’d have – even while I kind of hoped to have a lot more? You know when you hope for something but you realistically know you have to set your sights like...way lower? Like, I want – I dream of _all_ the kids seeing me one day! The fun we’d have! Oh man!’

Jack laughed to imagine it, as he had when he let his hopes run away from him. And then the giddiness in his heart spiralled away like water down the plug.

‘But I’d settle for _one_ kid. Just _once.’_

‘If you think that would be enough to sate that hungry heart of yours, then you’ll be very disappointed if that’s all life ever allows you. Though, life is terribly unfair.’

‘Like I haven’t heard that before?’ Jack said, laughing. ‘Or lived it?’

Pitch had been thinking about him over the past month and a half. Jack didn’t know anyone could do that. He didn’t even know it was possible. The Guardians – he was sure – forgot about him, or remembered him as an annoyance. But even though Pitch had called him ‘that blasted boy’ there was something soft and warm in his voice as he’d said it, and he’d turned up again, and he...wanted something too.

It hadn’t occurred to Jack that he could provide more than just snowballs and fun to children. That he could be _something_ to someone. After all, he had almost no world experience that involved interactions with others, his conversation style was marked with constant reminders that he hung around with children, despite his age.

‘Jack,’ Pitch said. ‘If you could do anything, right now, without fear of reprisal from me, or _anyone,_ what would you do?’

Jack couldn’t look into that gold gaze, and his palm twitched.

‘Really?’ Jack said.

‘Anything.’

‘It’s dumb.’

‘I promise not to laugh,’ Pitch said.

‘It’s just...’ Jack hesitated, fingers curling, turning back and meeting Pitch’s serious expression. ‘Aren’t you cold up here?’

Pitch _did_ laugh, but it was a surprised, bold thing. It echoed loudly around the mountain, and Jack sensed snow shifting above them and looked up quickly. Avalanches were possible up here, and Pitch seemed to realise, as he cut himself off and had the good grace to look abashed, staring warily up at the face of the mountain.

‘Apologies, Jack, but your deflection isn’t subtle. ‘It’s just’...what?’

‘It’s just...’ Jack tried again, wondering if Pitch knew already, if Pitch could see all his fears broadcasting like neon, or if it was harder than that. ‘I haven’t touched another person’s hair? I mean I think my hand brushed against Bunnymund’s fur once, by accident, and...’

_Soft, soft, though not as soft as actual rabbits, but softer than he thought it might be for someone so abrasive and made of sharp words and glares._

‘But that was it,’ Jack finished.

‘Come on then,’ Pitch said, bowing forwards and tipping his head so that Jack saw more of his hair than anything else. It grew in spikes, it _had_ to be sharp. Wires – Jack was sure, it would be like wires. He didn’t know what to do, standing there paralysed. In his mind it was far easier. He just walked forwards and touched his hair and even seemed like he knew what he was doing. The reality was that he felt as frozen as an icicle, mid-winter.

‘Come towards me,’ Pitch said, his voice coaxing.

‘How come you find this so easy?’ Jack said, accusatory.

‘I don’t,’ Pitch said quietly. ‘But a lifetime of reading the fears of others has made me rather cautious exposing my own. They are there, Jack. I have moments, I think, where I wonder – is this an elaborate rouse by the Guardians to capture me once more? Are you a strange form of bait? But I choose to dismiss them. Fear has taught me about the power of trust.’

‘I could hurt you,’ Jack said, shakily.

‘Yes, you could.’

Pitch’s body moved on a long inhale, a slow exhale. A deep breath of the kind someone might take to calm themselves.

He walked over to Pitch, feet padding on cold stone, feeling the warmth of him even as he approached. Jack was taller, standing, while Pitch sat. But Pitch was still a tall, intimidating creature and even sitting, Jack still felt small and slight beside him.

He twisted his staff in his hand several times.

_This is it. No matter what happens. You could have this. And even if you never had it again, you could use it to imagine all new kinds of things. That would be...that would be kind of cool._

Jack swallowed the lump in his throat and reached out with his fingertips. He hesitated again. What if his fingers just moved through? Like with the kids? What if-?

Jack bit off a sound in the back of his throat, and made himself poke the tips of Pitch’s hair.

‘Huh,’ Jack said, an absent sound. It wasn’t what he expected.

_Not wires. Not wires at all. How is it staying together like that? Not soft like Bunnymund, more like...mine? No, thicker. But there’s nothing in it holding it together and-_

‘How is it staying up like that?’ Jack said, his voice reedy. His palm was ghosting over it now. Over and over, slow trembling movements. He told himself he should stop, but he couldn’t make himself stop. He was shivering. He tried to tell himself that nothing at all was happening, but he knew this wasn’t nothing. This might end up being one of the most significant experiences in his life, especially if he could never have it again.

Pitch made a soft sound in the back of his throat – faint laughter.

‘How should I know?’

‘It defies gravity,’ Jack said, smiling.

‘So do you,’ Pitch laughed.

‘It’s softer than I thought,’ Jack said, risking running his fingers through it. He wasn’t anywhere near Pitch’s actual scalp, though he could feel the warmth of his skin. Pitch sighed a breath, shifted, his body became more relaxed.

‘Aren’t you cold?’ Jack said again.

‘Not at all,’ Pitch said.

‘Am I...bothering you?’

Jack was stroking Pitch’s hair slowly now, like he’d seen people pet cats and rabbits and horses. Longer motions. His hand was shaking less. He found it easier than he thought not to send frost skittering over Pitch’s hair. But then, he could keep that under control when he needed to.

‘Not at all,’ Pitch said again. Jack continued what he was doing. He couldn’t make himself stop. He would have to wait until Pitch told him to stop, because now that he was doing this, he was hungry for it. The hair that stayed in place no matter what he did to it. ‘I have this picture of a future where I might know someone who could tolerate my presence. Who might do these things that you’re doing. Talk with me. Be in my company.’

‘Pet your hair?’ Jack said.

‘If anyone saw me being petted like a _dog,_ right now, I’d be mortified,’ Pitch admitted. ‘This is not my usual image, I have to admit. If it turns out the Guardians are waiting nearby, I’m going to act very irresponsibly.’

‘Ha,’ Jack said. ‘Me too.’

‘Oh?’ Pitch said, sounding intrigued.

‘No, it’s nothing. I just don’t always get along with them. That trickster thing that you were talking about. It’s kind of true, y’know. No one wants a trickster on their team.’

Jack’s hand paused in Pitch’s hair, and he curled his fingers around a hank of it, closing them until he made a loose fist. He wanted to hold on and not let go. He wanted to keep going, but he was beginning to find a strange feeling creeping through him, a sensitivity to the texture of it. It was different, and his body wasn’t sure what to do with the information it was receiving. He went still, just holding Pitch’s hair.

‘Are you all right?’ Pitch said, still looking at the ground. Jack nodded.

‘Sure, just...this is all weird. And different. Still don’t know how I feel about you. The whole...nightmare thing.’

‘I’d like to return the favour, if I may,’ Pitch said, tilting his head back slowly so that Jack had to adjust his grip. Pitch looked up at him.

‘Can’t,’ Jack said, feeling like he was betraying himself. ‘I can’t. I don’t think I can handle it? How dumb is that?’

‘There will be other times,’ Pitch said, blinking slowly at him.

‘There will?’ Jack said, elated.

_Really?_

He didn’t understand why Pitch looked so sad at those words. And then he did understand, and he had to let go of Pitch’s hair and step back. His hand ached. It felt...empty.

‘I’ll leave you to think it all over,’ Pitch said, standing up smoothly and running a hand through his own hair – not to settle it, but, Jack thought, to trace the pattern Jack’s own hand had most frequently made. He had a perplexed look on his face, brows twisted up briefly, mouth slanted. Then his expression settled and he offered a small smile. ‘It’s in your hands, Jack. Find me in the shadows. Any time is fine.’

Jack didn’t want him to go, even as he watched him fade away.

But he was only able to breathe properly again once Pitch was gone, and he gulped lungfuls of air, turning his palm and staring at it, feeling more textures than the air itself.

He whooped in delight, then flew away quickly when the mountain released its snow.

*

He thought he’d only be able to wait an hour, but then an hour passed. He thought he’d only be able to wait a day, but then a day passed. He needed time, he realised, shocked. He needed time to understand what was happening.

Pitch didn’t want sex but he wanted touch. Pitch wanted someone to talk to. He was _easy_ to spend time with. Maybe that made Jack a bad guy, maybe it made Pitch better than...better than Jack thought. Jack wanted this to be morally straightforward, but it wasn’t. What if he and Pitch became friends, and then Pitch tried to take over the world? The sorts of questions most people didn’t have to ask themselves; but Jack couldn’t stop thinking about it.

He flew through the taiga, using the wind to clear a path for him through the diamond-dust – the tiny ice particles could hit his face like sand if he flew into them too quickly – and pondered it all. What would he do? How would the Guardians react? Would he be seen as Pitch’s accessory? He would _never_ help him with something that would hurt people, but would it matter to them? He might lose all chances to be...accepted by them.

But what if Pitch didn’t take over the world? Pitch said he wanted recognition.

_But you’ll never be enough for someone like him. He’s going to want more._

Jack frowned, thoughtfully, because he knew that was true. He couldn’t be enough for Pitch. He had hardly anything to offer.

Jack supposed if Pitch showed signs of power-hungriness in a serious way, he’d have to cut things off. He’d _have_ to tell the Guardians. It would hurt. And it would be hard. But that’s just the way it would have to be.

_Damn it, life sucks._

But once he knew what he would do in that situation, it all became much easier. He could accept whatever grew in the meantime – he hoped he could – because he wouldn’t be giving too much of himself away, even while he explored something new.

So it was a week later that he went to the shadows again, looking for Pitch, excited and scared and hopeful and thrumming with something nameless that moved in his blood like fireworks.

*

He waited on a forest floor at night. Thick canopy turned the forest almost black, even with his night vision. He could see the brilliant flashes of gold and green eyes from animals hunting and hiding, and he was reminded of that golden flash of Pitch’s eyes – like a cat’s tapetum lucidum. He paced nervously, had to restrain himself from simply flying from limb to limb and scattering frost everywhere. He buzzed with nervous energy.

‘How has your week been?’ Pitch said, appearing from behind a tree.

‘Good? I think?’ Jack said. He had touched Pitch’s hair. He had stood right next to him. His hand hadn’t moved through him.

Pitch nodded, lips quirked.

‘You?’ Jack said. ‘Good...week?’

‘Yes,’ Pitch said, tilting his head.

Jack realised he was excited about small-talk, and almost laughed.

‘I’m- If you ever try to take over the world, I’m going to have to tell them, you know,’ Jack said.

_Great. Best small-talk ever._

‘If I try and take over the world, and you get in my way, I’m going to have to remove you from my path.’

‘You’ll kill me?’ Jack said, and Pitch’s body stilled.

‘That actually wasn’t what I meant,’ Pitch said, looking at Jack warily. ‘I simply meant I would...disarm you, perhaps. I can’t speak to the other Guardians of course.’

‘And do you have something planned? Like, is that what your week involved?’

‘Ah,’ Pitch said. ‘You despise living in a grey area, don’t you? Can you not just accept the present for what it is?’

‘No!’ Jack said, stubbornly. ‘No, I can’t. Were you plotting things?’

‘That’s what I _do,’_ Pitch said. ‘Shadows think of how to encroach upon the light, that’s what we _do._ But, in answer to your question, do I have anything specifically in mind as of this moment? I’m ashamed to admit I don’t. I spent the week disseminating nightmares and wondering about you and sleeping.’

‘Sleeping,’ Jack said, squinting.

‘I sleep,’ Pitch said, sounding oddly defensive. ‘It’s hard work, you know. What I do.’

‘Uh huh,’ Jack said, staring at him. ‘That’s...okay, I guess I can see that.’

‘How magnanimous of you,’ Pitch said.

The conversation flowed a little more freely after that. Jack found himself curious to know what Pitch did. How did he give everyone the nightmares they needed? (Shadows could be sent out to help in the way Sandy sent out his dreamsand). Did he ever decide to give certain children a break? (To Jack’s surprise, he did). Did the shadows talk to him? (No, they were like the snow and the wind, they were excited to do what they did naturally, but otherwise mindless). Did he ever see Sandy while he was working? (Yes. They didn’t...get along, and maintained a respectful distance from each other.)

Hours must have passed before Jack could feel the dawn in his bones and his blood and realised they’d talked half the night away.

‘Shouldn’t you be working?’ Jack said suddenly.

‘Taking the night off,’ Pitch said. ‘And it’s always night somewhere.’

‘Ah, yeah,’ Jack laughed. ‘It doesn’t snow everywhere, it’s not _supposed_ to snow everywhere. So there’s like...a lot of the world I don’t have to think about. Also I’m not in charge of it snowing everywhere?’

‘Who is?’ Pitch said, curious.

‘No idea, hey. I hardly ever see anyone. I think winter is just winter, and then I came along and...I have no idea what I’m meant to be. Like, you’re in charge of children’s nightmares. And Sandy is like good dreams. But I’m not in charge of anything. I’m like an accident.’

‘Perhaps,’ Pitch said honestly. Jack wanted to be offended, but it was hard to be when Pitch seemed to enjoy his company.

Jack wanted to touch him again. He wanted to hold his hand in his own. They had been meandering through the forest, side by side, and Jack’s hand itched. He could just reach out, grasp Pitch’s hand. He could.

‘Jack, you don’t need some predetermined purpose to be worthwhile.’

‘What?’ Jack said, confused.

‘Even if you were an accident, even if you never know why you’re here – why does that matter? You’re here now. You can choose a purpose for yourself. You already have. You are someone who can control snow and wind and ice. You could have turned that to _anything,_ but you turned it to fun and caretaking and children and becoming a rather gentle-hearted trickster.’

‘The others have a purpose,’ Jack said, frowning. ‘And they all have each other.’

‘Jack, you’re not lonely because no one gave you a purpose,’ Pitch said. ‘It’s more complicated than that. You do understand, right?’

‘I don’t want to talk about this anymore,’ Jack said.

‘All right. I didn’t intend to upset you.’

‘It’s the subject,’ Jack said.

‘Yes,’ Pitch agreed.

Jack stumbled when fingers slipped into the loose curl of his fingers. They both stopped walking as Pitch took his hand

_Warm, warm, isn’t he cold? It’s way warmer than I thought, oh my god, his hand is massive compared to mine. Wow. It feels like the sun._

Jack smiled, helpless, at the absurdity of the comparison.

Pitch had nothing to do with the sun.

‘Is this upsetting?’ Pitch said, and Jack opened his eyes – hadn’t realised they were closed – and he shrugged.

‘Really new,’ Jack said.

_I always wanted this._

Jack was too scared to close his fingers around Pitch’s, and he just let his hand stay loose, contained by Pitch’s.

‘You look like a deer in the face of an oncoming truck,’ Pitch observed, and Jack laughed.

‘How long were you spying on me before you...talked to me?’ Jack said, sure his voice sounded strange.

‘Not long,’ Pitch admitted. ‘Two or three conversations, perhaps. Not long, Jack. Long enough that I thought you were interesting and wanted to know you better. I already knew you were a trickster. I’d heard things. I’d seen you around in the past.’

‘I never saw you.’

‘You’re always in the sky,’ Pitch smiled. ‘Most people see you as you flit past them. A spirit on the move. Elusive.’

‘You’re holding my hand,’ Jack said, dumbly.

‘Do you think you could walk at the same time?’ Pitch said. ‘Too many motor activities at once?’

‘Oh, shut up,’ Jack laughed, as they started walking again. ‘You’re the worst.’

‘Thank you,’ Pitch said, a smile in his voice, like it was one of the nicest compliments he’d heard in a while.

*

They met again in a week, which seemed to be some agreed upon time span. Jack was going to see him the day after, but this time Pitch found him frosting up car windows. He waved from an alleyway. Jack felt a spike of excitement, of apprehension, and he waved his staff absently and stopped giving the cars the ‘personal touch,’ letting the wind and frost do what it needed to.

‘That’s rather inconvenient to the people who drive,’ Pitch said, and Jack shrugged.

‘It’s beautiful, and it slows people down and forces them to take a moment. Even if they don’t _see_ the beauty in it, they _can’t_ just rush about in the same way as they do when there’s no frost anywhere.’

‘Oh, so you make people stop and take stock of the beauty in the world?’

‘ _Some_ of them,’ Jack said, laughing. ‘The rest find me a pain in the ass.’

‘Do you know how many people die on frosted footpaths each year?’ Pitch said, and Jack shrugged.

‘Your nightmares ever killed anyone?’

Pitch hummed an acknowledgement.

That was their reality. North’s presents had caused fatal accidents. Bunnymund didn’t always know if someone had an allergy to cocoa until it was too late. Sandy didn’t have much of a death count, and nor did Toothiana, but the rest of them...

Jack felt oddly neutral about it. About the deaths he’d caused. Some had been _very_ deliberate. He’ll never forget the first time he saw a man beating a child by a snowdrift. The child had been very distressed at the falling icicles, the sudden snow-flurry that buried her father, and Jack felt nothing but a cold sense of justice. He hadn’t even been sad at her sadness. Later he worried if there was something wrong with him.

He’d come to the conclusion he wasn’t human, and it was that simple. He might look human, but he wasn’t. He was a creature. Sometimes creatures had to do things that other creatures didn’t like.

Humans might not understand, but they didn’t need to.

Was that how Pitch felt?

_But...nightmares though, everyone hates them._

Pitch and Jack walked down alleyways and shaded city streets, underneath outdoor cafe parasols and by planter boxes filled with geraniums. Pitch slipped his hand into Jack’s again, and Jack didn’t stumble at all, he even managed to squeeze back.

Their height differences meant that Jack had to walk a little faster, but that was okay, because Jack was predisposed to faster motion anyway. It suited him.

They talked about their favourite cities, and Jack confessed his secret urge to one day just bring a cataclysmic snowstorm to all the places that had never seen them, to see how everyone would deal. To watch adults panic while children cavorted. Pitch laughed, talked about how wonderful chaos could be, and Jack flushed blue at Pitch’s lack of disapproval for his ideas. He’d probably never do them, but it was nice not to be judged outright.

The day passed lazily. Pitch only let go of Jack’s hand to point something out, and Jack only let go when his hand got too warm and the temperature felt almost painful. He’d send some frost over his skin quickly, and Pitch didn’t even seem to mind when a newly cold hand found his again.

They parted ways in the shadow of a skyscraper, reflective glass showing the blue of the sky above them.

‘A week?’ Pitch said.

‘Yeah,’ Jack smiled.

‘Stay out of trouble.’

‘Yeah, _right,’_ Jack laughed, and he hopped onto the winds and flew away.

*

Pitch liked musicals more than anyone had any right to, Jack discovered. Especially – oddly – children’s musicals. But when Jack asked about it, the answer was more than a little disturbing.

‘I like to start nightmares in the settings of musicals,’ Pitch said. ‘A yellow brick road turning black, little Annie learning what it is to lose Sandy for the first time, the dear von Trapp family never making it across those mountains.’

‘Woah,’ Jack said, staring at him. ‘That’s _evil!’_

‘Nightmares aren’t meant to be pleasure cruises,’ Pitch said.

‘Yeah, but, still...Pitch!’

Pitch laughed.

‘They have a purpose, did you know? Have you ever bothered to read anything on the subject? Nightmares are necessary for the functioning of that non-conscious part of the mind. They help the back end of the brain cleanse the body of trauma. That terrifying nightmare that tears someone apart for a day, sometimes means that they feel better in a few days.’

‘What?’ Jack said, staring at him.

‘Yes,’ Pitch said. ‘Not always, of course. Your snowball fights don’t always end joyfully. Sometimes arms are broken, ankles twisted. It’s not all fun and games, no matter what the intent. But nightmares, Jack, they _do_ have a purpose beyond just _terror.’_

‘But-’

‘I’ll ask you to do your own research,’ Pitch said, seriously. ‘I’m not going to justify who I am to you any further than that, Jack. If you want to talk about my occasional bouts of megalomania, then – all right. That’s acceptable. But the nightmares? I find your lack of acceptance tedious.’

‘No, it’s not lack of acceptance,’ Jack said, ‘I just-’

‘It’s my job, and it’s my passion, and it’s something I care about a great deal. I feel the same sense of completion in crafting a finely constructed nightmare, as _you_ do when you create a perfect snowstorm. Do you understand? How would you feel if I kept implying that what you were was bad and wrong?’

‘I’m not doing that,’ Jack said, and realised that he was. He squeezed Pitch’s hand harder. ‘I’m...’

‘I am not a bad person, Jack,’ Pitch said. ‘I have done bad, destructive things. That’s different. But shadows are not inherently bad. And I am not a villain just because I am made of the dark.’

‘The Guardians say that you-’

‘Jack,’ Pitch said, his voice firming. ‘I need you to hear what I’m saying. This is important to me.’

He didn’t let go of Jack’s hand though, and eventually they stopped walking and faced each other.

‘Okay, yeah,’ Jack said. ‘I’ll do some research into the nightmare thing. I’ll...okay. It’s hard for me.’

‘I don’t care,’ Pitch said, something dark in his expression. It would be more frightening, if Jack couldn’t tell that this was fuelled by something other than the desire to bring darkness into someone’s life.

‘Okay,’ Jack said. ‘Got it. You’re not a bad person.’

Was it a trap?

Pitch smiled ruefully.

‘You don’t believe it, though, do you?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jack said. ‘Let me work on it. Okay?’

‘All right,’ Pitch said, squeezing his hand. Jack returned the firm contact and offered him a smile of apology.

*

A week later, Jack was still doing his research. He found universities that taught lectures on sleep science, and found himself immediately overwhelmed with the world of sleep, dreams, nightmares, the unconscious mind. A lot of jargon was thrown around, and Jack knew he wasn’t understanding at least half of what was being said, but he understood some of it, and was surprised to realise that Pitch wasn’t lying.

Nightmares, in their healthy, non-disordered expression, were _necessary_ for a person to be _healthy._

It shocked him. He always thought people would be happier, better, if they had no nightmares at all.

But all the research showed that it was the opposite that was true. People could get sick. They could develop mental illnesses.

A few minutes or hours or a day of a nightmare hangover seemed the price that people had to pay for longer-lasting health. And most people, even kids, didn’t remember them anyway.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

But when he saw Pitch next time, he wondered if the Guardians even _knew_ that. He wondered if Sandy knew it. But then he thought – Sandy probably did. Sandy tolerated Pitch. They didn’t like to run through the same town at night, but they never attacked each other when they did see each other.

 _Huh,_ Jack thought. _That’s...weird._

That week they kept to neutral subjects. But Pitch let Jack touch his hair again when he asked, and Jack said that maybe next time he’d let Pitch return the gesture. Pitch seemed pleased at that, and Jack was suddenly grateful that he was never pushed around by Pitch, that he was never meant to be someone he wasn’t.

All Pitch was asking for was the same acceptance in return.

He didn’t know why it was hard for him. Maybe acceptance was something he had to practice.

*

His education in the world of musicals was ongoing. He’d seen a lot and dismissed them, but he’d decided he could at least... _try_ and appreciate them more. He had a low tolerance for them. Especially Disney musicals. Pitch found it egregious.

‘How can _you,_ a spirit of children and youth and fun and – _ugh._ How can you not like animated musicals?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jack laughed. They wandered through a dark, snow-laden village street. Everyone abed and Jack adding to the loads of snow on roofs, gables, the banisters of porches and verandahs. ‘But oh, _Chicago!_ ‘He Had It Coming’ – I _love_ that.’

‘Mm, it’s called the ‘Cell Block Tango,’’ Pitch said, and then raised his brows at Jack. ‘Revenge? Perhaps you do have a dark side.’

‘You know I do,’ Jack said, abashed.

‘Doesn’t like kids movies, but has a broad appreciation for musicals about _murder._ Perhaps you should watch Sweeney Todd.’

‘It’s not about the murder,’ Jack said.

Pitch rolled golden eyes and Jack grinned, because this was also a playful, ongoing theme. Pitch liked that Jack had a darker side to him, to his actions. It was true, sometimes his fun went too far and arms were broken or injuries happened and ambulances were called – where ambulances were to be found. Sometimes he chanced across criminals and had done things with icicles that he was very glad none of the Guardians knew about. Though he was certain that if North had ever come across similar while dropping off toys, he would have ripped organs out through throats.                                                                                                  

Jack, by comparison, prodded Pitch about the fact that he _did_ like a lot of children’s films. All that time around kids, scaring them – it didn’t matter what his motives were or how he turned them into nightmares, the fact remained that sometimes Pitch got distracted. When he saw a sleeping child with a running television in the background, he would forget what he was doing and catch the last forty five minutes of _The Little Mermaid._

Pitch confessed these things with not nearly as much shame as Jack thought was appropriate.

It was one of the things he liked about Pitch. He seemed to accept things about himself that others might not. Perhaps it was his constant exposure to the insecurities of others.

They’d talked about that too. A week ago.

‘Everyone’s fears, they’re all very similar,’ Pitch had said, and Jack had looked up from the snow palace he was making, to where Pitch was leaning against a tree.

‘They are, huh?’

‘They are. Abandonment. Loss. Rejection. Ostracism. Death. Annihiliation. They all tend to centre around what I call the big six. Even yours. Even mine. Even the little child in New Zealand who is terrified of candy canes coming to life and infesting him like parasites.’

‘Oh _gross.’_

‘That comes under death and/or annihilation,’ Pitch said, then shrugged.

‘Does it get boring?’

‘Fear isn’t boring,’ Pitch sighed. ‘Do you ever find snow boring?’

‘No, I mean, it’s so-’ And then Jack understood. ‘Huh. Okay. I get it.’

Jack found himself thinking that even if he and Pitch didn’t work out – which he didn’t like to think about, but had to think about, because it was unrealistic not to consider it – he was still connected to a new network of knowledge he didn’t have before. All those kids that seemed somehow better than him, or separate to him, he was connected to them.

They all shared many of the same fears. He shared those fears with Pitch, and the Guardians, and any other sentient creature. It was a novelty to think all of his weird hang-ups, everything that he felt was wrong with him, they all came from a core place of fear that others had too. He never thought that would be the thing to help him feel like he had more of a place in the world, but it did.

Now, as they wandered towards the edge of the town, the snow picking up in pace, Jack looked up and smiled to see snow dusting Pitch’s hair. They weren’t holding hands. It didn’t always work. Their walking paces were different, especially when Jack was focusing on the snow. But Jack’s hand itched for him, and he wanted...

He wanted _something._

‘How about today?’ Jack said, shivering.

Pitch stopped walking and Jack almost laughed and felt like he should change his mind because what if, after all this time of Jack mostly touching Pitch – Pitch did sometimes reach out and touch Jack’s hand – what if his hand just passed through Jack’s head? Or what if something worse happened? He didn’t know what could be worse, but what if-

‘Jack,’ Pitch said. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Nope,’ Jack said. ‘Do I have to be? Can’t I just, panic halfway through and run away or something?’

‘You... _can,’_ Pitch said, as though it hadn’t occurred to him. ‘There’s probably better ways of going about this.’

‘Don’t care about better. Just like, I don’t know, just pat my head or something.’

Jack’s shoulders hunched in anticipation, he was shaking. After ten seconds when Pitch hadn’t done anything, Jack made a sound of frustration.

‘Seriously, can we just get it out of the way. Like, can you just-’

He squeaked to a halt when Pitch stepped closer to him and raised his hand slowly. Pitch didn’t touch him straight away. There was a curved palm hovering over his shoulder, then hanging in the air by the side of his head. He could feel it coming closer. Magnetism. Electricity. The temperature. He didn’t know. He felt like he would vibrate and shatter like ice.

Pitch sighed, and then Jack felt it, fingers fluttering over the top of his hair. He flinched.

‘What does it feel like?’ Pitch asked.

Jack stood up straighter, relaxing a little, and it had the inadvertent side effect of his head making full contact with Pitch’s hand. He stilled. Pitch’s hand curled over the back of his head, fingers resting like they belonged there. It was warm. Pitch’s hand was large. He was staring at Pitch and words weren’t working.

Pitch rubbed his hand an inch, back and forth, careful but firm. Jack’s eyes closed. That was nice. He didn’t have a way to describe it to himself. But after a moment he thought it was an important feeling, at least. It was one he wanted to have again.

Pitch withdrew his hand and Jack stared at it, even once it was by Pitch’s side.

‘It’s not magic,’ Pitch said, sounding sad.

‘It kind of is, though.’

‘It would be fabulous if, one day, it was just something you could accept as your due.’

Jack was running his fingers through his own hair. He couldn’t wipe the smile off his face, even as something fractured in his chest. All those years of running his own hands through his hair and it wasn’t the same. How could he have convinced himself it was the same? He could feel residual warmth from Pitch’s hand over his scalp. He mimicked the slow back and forth movements Pitch made and felt buzzed with excitement and heavy at the same time.

‘I always appreciated Mr. Cellophane,’ Pitch said.

 _‘‘Cuz you can look right through me, walk right by me, and never know I’m there?’’_ Jack said in response, and Pitch smiled broadly at him.

 _‘Never. Even. Know...’_ He sang, his voice melodious. He left the line hanging, but Jack didn’t sing, and Pitch finished it quietly. He laughed under his breath. ‘Anthem for the ignored.’

‘It’s a great song,’ Jack agreed. ‘Not as good as that Cell Block Tango one. But yeah, like, I want to see an actual musical of it. I’ve only seen the most recent film. Apparently there’s different versions?’

‘Oh, _yes,_ well...if you like, we could organise to go to a show.’

‘As in a date?’ Jack said, staring at him.

Pitch flushed grey.

‘A...date between friends,’ Pitch amended, and Jack laughed and poked him with his staff.

‘You are such – if anyone knew how much of a _dork_ you were...’

‘We don’t have to go,’ Pitch added, and Jack shook his head rapidly.

‘I would like, really dig that though,’ Jack said. ‘I like it. Musicals are fun but in a different way, and I need like, I need more of that.’

‘We both do,’ Pitch agreed, as they started walking around the outskirts of the town once more.

Pitch didn’t judge or comment as Jack started rubbing his scalp again. He couldn’t help himself. He wasn’t ready for Pitch to do it again – not yet – but what he had was already special, and his hands followed and catalogued and added to his expanding library of what gentle touch could be.

*

A year later, they lay on a rooftop, heads hanging off the side, staring up at the stars. Blood rushed to Jack’s head. They were close enough that their shoulders were touching. Jack wondered if he could ever grow to get used to this. If there would ever be a day where he would expect closeness as something he deserved, and not a miracle that would disappear in a day, a month, the following month.

‘Do you think you’ll still try and take over the world one day?’

‘I don’t know,’ Pitch said, and Jack ignored the well of anxiety in his gut. He tried to. It stirred and flowed through him and Pitch turned to face him, placing a hand on his forearm. Jack could handle it now. Small touches. They had become part of the weft of their connection to one another. Little threads of touch that created a tapestry that was stronger than before. ‘Jack, I’ve lived a long time. Sometimes I get ideas to do things that other people don’t like; and they seem like the right idea at the time.’

‘I just...don’t like the idea that in a year, or ten years, or like... _fifty...’_

‘I don’t understand you, sometimes. Your role models are children, who always live in the present. And-’

‘That’s such a lie,’ Jack said. ‘That’s such a _lie!’_

He sat up, turned so he was facing Pitch, legs hanging off the roof.

‘You all do it. Buy into this stupid romanticisation of childhood, like – the Guardians too. Oh kids are more honest than adults – like, no? Kids _lie._ Just, sometimes about different things! And kids live in the present? Oh my god, like – you give them nightmares about their fears of abandonment and loss and grief and like...death. You _know_ they don’t live in the present! Jesus, Pitch. They get scared. They are worried about their futures. Just because they don’t have the _language_ for it, or because they don’t tell adults about it ‘cuz they’re so used to being dismissed, doesn’t mean it’s not happening.’

Jack laughed coldly.

‘You guys, the way you try and like, romanticise youth, it’s disgusting. It has to stop. They are small people and some of them have less life experience than most adults. And that’s it. They’re still learning. They should be respected and not condescended to. And some of them have _more_ life experience than most adults. Like, you know, child prostitutes, drug runners, the ones who know how to call 911 when their mom has been beaten half to death by their partner because, you know, it’s happened before? The ones who know a full-time work week, or worse, by the age of like eight? Don’t...don’t give me some mythical crap about what children are supposed to be. They _are_ my role models. And-’

‘Okay,’ Pitch said quietly, holding up his hands, sitting. ‘I won’t say it again. It was a bad comparison to make. You are, of course, perfectly correct.’

‘Yeah,’ Jack said, glaring at him. ‘Yeah, I am.’

He was breathing faster than before. It was a sore spot for him. The way the Guardians could do it too. Pitch wasn’t so unlike them, sometimes.

‘I’ll rephrase,’ Pitch said, his voice careful, soothing. ‘I can’t make a promise about how this – us – is going to go. My concern is that you won’t enjoy this as much as you could, for the length of however long this lasts, because you’ll always be scared of a future that hasn’t happened yet.’

‘Yeah?’ Jack said, narrowing his eyes at him.

‘What if you grow out of me? What if you learn how to bond with the Guardians and leave? What if you decide you like the touch but can find other ways of getting it? What if, Jack? Do you think I, too, am not scared? All I know is that for some time, we have enjoyed each other’s company. I try to focus on that instead.’

Jack sighed. He was tired. He placed his head in his hands and closed his eyes. He only jumped a little when Pitch placed a hand on his back.

 _‘The sun’ll come out...tomorrow,’_ Pitch sang quietly, like a lullaby, and Jack snorted.

‘You know I _hate_ that stupid- You know what? You are the _worst.’_

Jack had made the snowball even as he lifted his head, laughing. The look on Pitch’s face when it smacked him in the cheek was priceless.

‘Uncalled for,’ Pitch said, as Jack flew away into the air.

‘You started it.’

‘I did- I most certainly did _not.’_

Pitch leapt off the roof and followed, shadows moving towards him and helping him pick up speed. Jack felt a thrill of exhilaration, this was something they did more of now too, and he stayed low to the ground, made it easier for Pitch to catch him. He sent more snowballs behind him as he went, and Pitch muffled a swear word infused with amusement.

The chase was on – dark chasing the cold through the township, laughter peppering the air.

 


End file.
